Learn HOW TO MAKE SIMPLE SYRUP as your gateway ingredient to creating sweet, delicate glazed desserts or drinks. If you’re like me and you like your food smooth and consistent, I would personally recommend this easy-to-make concoction that you can do at home. This makes a great holiday giveaway, too!
Isn’t it frustrating when your friend asks you to make your coffee sweeter so you add table sugar to his coffee and then he says “Oh! That’s too sweet!”
Well, once you master how to make simple syrup at home, you’ll be serving the best-customized coffee in town. But I’m gonna let you in on a food hack: you can also apply simple syrup on different food from marinade to topping and even to salad dressing (more on this below).
What is Simple Syrup?
As promised above, we’ll tell you the secrets of our homemade syrup. Well, there is no big secret about this sweet liquified version of sugar coz it’s actually, yep you guessed it, just dissolved sugar in water. TA- DAAH!
Simple syrup is an essential ingredient in many drinks and on some desserts as it blends well with the rest of the ingredients (especially with liquid).
Making this mixture requires focus and patience but not a lot of it. This simple syrup recipe is so easy that you can make it faster than you can sing entirely your favorite song.
Ways to Use Simple Syrup
Commonly, you can see the use of this mixture as a syrupy swirl on drinks.
1. Alcoholic Cocktails – if you have a sweet personality but you also like to have fun this is for you. Try it on this Strawberry Margarita recipe or this Strawberry Daiquiri recipe HERE.
2. Coffee-based drinks – whether you want to read a book on a rainy day or you need a quick energy boost, enhance your coffee with your homemade syrup.
3. Juices – if you want that smooth drink without those sugary grains, then use a basic simple syrup to add sweetness glitz to your drink. How about trying it on these fresh juice recipes: Homemade Pineapple Juice, or this Strawberry Lemonade.
4. Sassy Tea – if you feel like your tea is too bitter, add one to three pumps of your concoction to your plain ol’ tea. Here’s an idea, let the tea cool down first, add syrup, and then add ice. You’ll have yourself a freshly brewed sweet iced tea. *Clap*
If you think it’s only used for beverages, think again! You can try your simple syrup to funk up these recipes and make it your own.
1. Moisten your cake- brush a good amount of simple syrup to cooled slices or layers of your cake to give it a little love and moisture.
2. Make your own flavors – by adding simple infusions such as flavors from fresh fruits, herbs, vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, and whole spices, to name a few. The best part about this is that you can mix and match different flavors based on what you like. Don’t let anyone tell you what you can do!
Pro Tip: To infuse flavors in this simple syrup, allow the added ingredients to simmer together and cool fully with the syrup.
3. Sweeten your Salad – a good amount of simple syrup would give your salad a not-so-ordinary twist. Your fruit salad will surely go the extra mile. (See my Tropical Fruit Salad HERE)
4. Sweetened Marinade – in some parts of the world, you could marinade a chunk of ham before smoking to have that sweet smoked ham. Try brushing it on a barbecue or roasted chicken to have that oh-so-lovely -caramel-brown roasted chicken skin. Yum yum!
Storing your Simple Syrup
You don’t have to use all of the syrup at once. If you made a few ounces more, you can store it in a bottle or jar with a tight lid and keep it somewhere refrigerated for 1 month or so. I personally like to keep mine on squeeze bottles so I could easily use it on drinks and pastries. It’s more fun, easy, and convenient in that way.
More Simple Kitchen How-Tos
How to Make Simple Syrup
In a small medium saucepan, combine sugar and water and place over medium heat. Cook for about 2-4 minutes while stirring until sugar is dissolved. Remove pan from the heat and let it cool, as it cools it slightly thickens up. Pour into a container or a glass jar and seal tightly with a lid. Simple syrup will keep refrigerated for about one month.
How to Make Simple Syrup
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup water
Instructions
- In a small medium saucepan, combine sugar and water and place over medium heat.
- Cook for about 2-4 minutes while stirring until sugar is dissolved.
- Remove pan from the heat and let it cool, as it cools it slightly thickens up.
- Pour into a container or a glass jar and seal tightly with a lid.
- Simple syrup will keep refrigerated for about one month.
Tips & Notes:
- Add simple infusions into this syrup such as flavors from fresh fruits, herbs, vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, and whole spices, to name a few.
- To infuse flavors in this simple syrup, allow the added ingredients to simmer together and cool fully with the syrup. Remove the added ingredients after cooling.
- Simple syrup with granulated sugar is clear. But you can always swap it for Demerara and Turbinado sugar for a light caramel-y flavor and brown sugar for a deeply flavored syrup on a winter drink.
- Please keep in mind that nutritional information is a rough estimate and can vary greatly based on products used.
Nutrition Information:
Ann says
Thank you for this recipe, but I’m pretty sure the yield for 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar will be 16-18 Tablespoons of simple syrup, not 16-18 teaspoons. The widget that adjusts the serving size seems to be mis-calibrated.
Imma says
Thank you for catching that. Unfortunately, the automatic converter sometimes makes mistakes.